Date of Birth
27 December 1985, Long Beach, California, USA
Birth Name
Kayla Noelle Ewell
Height
5' 7" (1.7 m)
Mini Biography
Kayla Noelle Ewell was born in Long Beach, California on August 27, 1985 and raised in Seal Beach. A child who loved performing from a very young age, she began touring with the national Broadway company children's chorus for the production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat by the time she was only in the fourth grade. Along with this, Kayla also studied dance, singing, and acting at the Orange County Song & Dance Company. By 1999, she was discovered by a talent agent while taking acting classes and asked to start going on auditions. While she was able to pick up a number of guest roles including a multi-episode stint on Freaks and Geeks (1999) she continued to go to school and graduated from Los Alamitos High School in 2003. Ewell first appeared on the television series Freaks and Geeks (1999) in 2000, playing Maureen Sampson in the episode Freaks and Geeks: Carded and Discarded (2000) directed by [lin=nm0031976]. She starred on the soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful (1987) from 2004-2005, and has guest-starred on the TV series The O.C. (2003), Boston Public (2000), Veronica Mars (2004), Close to Home (2005) and Entourage (2004). She had a role in the film Just My Luck (2006), starring Lindsay Lohan, and in Material Girls (2006), starring Haylie Duff and Hilary Duff, in 2006. She had a starring role in the film Senior Skip Day (2008). Ewell co-starred in The CW television series The Vampire Diaries (2009) for the first seven episodes in 2009. Ewell described her character, Vicki Donovan, to Star magazine as a troublemaker. Vicki was the first human on the series turned into a vampire. Ewell was killed off the show when her character was staked in the heart by Stefan (Paul Wesley) in order to save Elena (Nina Dobrev) in the Halloween-themed episode The Vampire Diaries: Haunted (2009). Ewell hinted in November 2009 that she was still under contract for the role and might return to the show, but series creator, Kevin Williamson, stated that there were no plans to bring her back. Her character did return however in the finale of the second season, and at the start of season 3. Ewell played a children's fashion designer in the 2011 Hallmark Channel TV movie, Keeping Up with the Randalls (2011), alongside Thad Luckinbill, Marion Ross, Roma Downey and McKenna Jones. She next appeared on the A&E television series, The Glades (2010), that year, as a waitress suspected of murder in the episode The Glades: Beached (2011). In 2012, she guest starred on the TNT drama, Franklin & Bash (2011), playing a Navy sailor facing a court-martial. Ewell starred in the 2013 Hallmark Movie Channel film, A Way Back Home (2013), as Norma, a country music singer and songwriter. The film was named after a 1950s Norman Rockwell painting that featured bluegrass musicians playing in a barbershop. Ewell starred in the 2013 horror film, The Demented (2013). She also starred in the 2014 Lifetime movie, Deadly Daycare (2014),. In April 2016, Ewell began filming the feature, 2 Years and 8 Days, with Ryan Merriman in New Mexico. The film, retitled 2 Years of Love (2017) was released on January 24, 2017. .In her free time, Kayla has said she enjoys painting, rock climbing, and rappelling, and still dances whenever she can. She even goes whitewater rafting from time to time among other various hobbies such as surfing.
Trivia
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Has one sister and two brothers.
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Shared an apartment in Atlanta with Nina Dobrev.
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(September 12, 2015) Married her boyfriend of 5 years Tanner Novlan in an elegant ceremony in front of nearly 200 of their closest family and friends at the Jonathan Club in downtown Los Angeles following a 9-month-long engagement. They met on set of Australian band Sick Puppies' music video for their single "Maybe." Standing by her side as one of six bridesmaids was her former co-star Candice King. Her close friend and former co-star Nina Dobrev and boyfriend Austin Stowell ("I did a movie with him two years ago," says Ewell) also celebrated with the happy couple, along with Michael Trevino, Zach Roerig and Sara Canning.
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Mother, with husband Tanner Novlan, of daughter Poppy Marie Novlan (b. July 16, 2019).